Before Freedom
by justlikeanemptynotebook
Summary: What was life like for the Flock before Jeb whisked them off to Colorado? And how did Iggy end up being the one to lose his eyes?
1. In the Beginning

It's a new day, a new story,

the question i aim to answer here, What was life like before Jeb 'rescued' the Flock?

The first chapter is always the shortest.

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**Max**

If I remember really far back, through a childhood that would traumatize most Navy S.E.A.L.'s, I remember darkness and voices, and pain. One voice in particular, one voice that I remember with mixed emotions

**Fang**

Jeb. He was talking, and I remember that at first it was just a drone of noise, and then a few minutes later I could make out every word, crystal clear and I understood the words that only seconds ago had been meaningless. I still remember every word.

**Iggy**

"Three of them, I can't believe we stimulated the brain synapses in all three of them! And look at the sensory portions of their brains. They're going crazy, look how bright the screen is, and their eyes aren't even open…I wonder… Make that one open his, that one on the end."


	2. The One on the End

Chapter 2. Here we go.

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**Max**

I was really desperately hoping not to be the one on the end. But there was no way to be sure, and I wasn't going to open my eyes and be picked just because I had. But, wait, I'm a girl, and Jeb had said 'him'. That meant Fang or Iggy. And I was afraid again, but less than I had been 'Poor kid.' I thought, but even as I did, I was glad they wouldn't poke or prod me, or shock me with the stupid electric stick. I calmed down, I wouldn't be shocked. While I knew very little before that, I knew pain. And I knew it came with that voice, Jeb's voice.

**Fang**

'…That one on the end." I had to steel myself if that was me. But how could I know? One thing's for sure, I wasn't dumb enough to open my eyes. But I had to know if the shock was coming. I tried to reach out, to feel if I was on the end or the middle, but my hands were tied down. I listened carefully, and my ears picked up every sound beyond the beeps and hums of the medical machinery I was hooked to. To my left I heard a quick staccato heartbeat. Someone there was scared. To the right, a slower beat, more confident, but how could someone not be scared, how could they know that they weren't the one that was going to get shocked? Max, only Max could be that confident in the face of danger. But even as I thought it, my own heartbeat slowed, I wouldn't get shocked, I was in the middle.

**Iggy**

I was frantic, scared, my eyes flashed open as if I had no control over them. Bright, fluorescent lights glared down on me and made my skin a scary, waxy color. I looked to my right. There were two other people. A pretty girl with wild blond hair and white skin and a boy with longish black hair and olive-y skin were hooked up to IV's. Max and Fang. I looked to my left, heart pounding like it would burst, I was on the last gurney. I was the one on the end.


	3. The Limits of Humanity

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thank you for reading, and i know you might not have a minute, but if you do, take it and use that minute to write a review!

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**Max **

"Whoa! Look at…" Jeb cried. I heard a male voice whimper with fear. And then suddenly cry out. The smell of static electricity permeated the air. Someone had been shocked, but I couldn't be sure which someone, only that, thankfully, it hadn't been me.

"Harkins, you didn't have to do that, his eyes were already open! You need to stop damaging them. Eventually one will get damaged beyond repair! This is a multi-billion dollar project, you can_not_ go around shocking them for your own pleasure! _We cannot afford to lose another one!_"

Jeb sounded angry and I was scared. I heard the beeps that were monitoring my heart, speed up, as did two other machines near me. Two other people. Whenever they took me anywhere, they brought these two other people. There was me, and two others. There were always three machines. Always three. That was always how it was, Fang, Iggy and Max.

Harkins mumbled something that sounded like an apology. A third, feminine voice chimed in.

**Fang **

"Jeb, don't get distracted, what were you saying before Harkins shocked it."

"'Him', not 'it'." Jeb mumbled.

"_Excuse me?_" the woman asked.

"Nothing, sorry. Right, so did you notice the screen when he opened his eyes, it was, it was… ablaze with color!" The excitement was working its way back into Jeb's voice. "These things can see miles away. It's the avian DNA in action. Birds need to be able to see the ground when they're flying miles above the ground, and I think that these kids may be able to see almost that far."

"Almost?" she asked critically.

"Well, the human DNA is probably inferring slightly. I'd assume that their eyesight is somewhere closer to avian than human, but still below avian."

**Iggy**

"Their humanity limits them. Fix it."

"Excuse me?" it was Jeb's turn to say those words, but in a tone much differing that which the woman had used when she'd uttered those same words only moments ago.

"I said fix it. Take that one into surgery right now and see if you can enhance the vision, or even get rid of the human flaws all together."

"But we can't, it's too risky, we haven't even had time to prep for something like this, we can't risk damaging…"

The woman stepped very close to Jeb so that they were almost nose to nose. They looked like they were about to kiss. But instead she lowered her voice and said "You will do it now, you will do it without complaint, and you will not ever, under any circumstances, ever speak or act against my wishes again."

There was silence for some time during which an epic staring battle went on, and then Jeb sighed a melancholy sort of sigh and walked around to me. He leaned down and smiled sadly. "Who knows kid, it might help." Then he tied a cold blindfold around my head and said, "Leave that on and keep his eyes cool and shut for ten minutes and then we'll start."

Jeb's sad face was the last thing I saw and the last memory I held on to as I was wheeled out on my bed. The two other machines beeped rhythmically, the sounds getting further and further away as I moved further and further away from the last time I ever saw.


	4. U Only Know What U Had Once U've Lost It

Thank you guys for being such great people and for reading this and making me feel good about my suckish stories, i love yall for it :)

once again, i leave you with one word

REVIEW

**Max**

We did more tests, more exercises, got more shocks to 'stimulate' us, but now we did it alone. Just us two, Fang and me, there was no third machine like there always had been. Fang and I didn't speak, but we knew that we might never see Iggy again. That night, as we whiled away the hours in our crates, trying to see how far out of the bars we could poke our fingers, there was a huge uproar, and we heard Jeb shouting and assistants running and all the sounds that accompany chaos. But we were strangely removed, crouching down in the dark room that served as our cell for the majority of the day. The door to the room opened a minute and someone threw a cage in roughly, more roughly than usual. The crate fell over and the lab tech spat in the direction he had thrown the crate. "Disgusting." He said, and stalked out swiftly.

**Fang**

I stuck my fingers through the bars of my crate and was able to reach the new crate that had just been dumped in the room. I pulled it forward and Max and I peered in wearily.

"Hello? Anyone in there? You don't need to be afraid. It's okay, we won't hurt you, it's okay." Max said sweetly in a baby voice that I wasn't used to hearing from the most difficult lab animal in a crate.

I smiled wondrously, and then stared with shock as our old Crate-mate, Iggy suddenly grasped the bars of the door in his crate with his long, bony, pale fingers and struggled to pull his head up and level with the opening. Max and I both gasped and Iggy whispered in a frightened voice,

"You guys, is it you guys? Max, Fang? Why can't I see anything? Is it that dark? You guys can't see either, can you? Oh it's so dark. Max? Fang? Are you there, it's so, so dark. So cold, everything feels more, but looks less. I just…Max, Fang?" We regained composure but I remained speechless. Max threw herself against the cage bars and grabbed Iggy's hands.

"Oh, Iggy." She started crying.

"What?" Iggy asked. He still didn't understand.

"Iggy," I said. "Iggy, I think they took away your sight. Iggy, I think you're…_blind._"

**Iggy **

Pain. Bright pin pricks of pain in my eyes, my temples. My whole body hurt, more than usual. I could feel the pain more. Like everything felt sharper, I was more aware of it. And it was scary. And then Fang said that word, he said 'Blind'

"But…you guys can't see either, can you?"

Max stifled the tears in her voice and said, "Iggy, we can. They didn't touch us. Their evil, their terrible," she was getting characteristically angry now, "they just, they just took you and now, oh I'll kill them all for doing this to you Iggy, for doing this to all of us. You just wait the next time a smelly white coat grabs my cage, Fang won't be the only one named after a dental appendage of a feral animal. I'll bite all their stupid fingers off. I'm so sorry Iggy." And she was crying again.


	5. Three More A Max Chapter

And, my first chapter with only one POV, what will i do?

I will pretend to be the most butt-kicking winged warrior on the face of this earth, that's what ill do!

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**Max**

I hated those white coats so much. I cried all that night, just because of the injustice of it all. And I think that it was then, that I eventually learned that crying did absolutely nothing to help anything. Fang had stayed up and talked to a traumatized Iggy and calmed him down minimally. The next morning, Iggy's thoughts and words were scrambled and incoherent. They had him on some powerful meds that made his speech garbled.

"They took me to another lab after I left you guys. They were talking and someone was crying. Someone little. A lot of someone's. and then the white coat, Jeb, he said that they were another batch, like a batch of cookies or something…I want cookies…and…

"Iggy, you need to try to focus." I said.

"Those stupid white coats don't even care about him anymore now that…now that he's defective." I grabbed the bars of my cage and rattled them in frustration. Fang sensed my mood and turned back to Iggy.  
"Hey, Ig? I know you're feeling a little bit off, but just finish what you were saying and then you can take a long nap, okay?"

"Yeah, Fang-a-lang, definitely, that sounds like a great idea. Right, batches…Another batch of kids… of kids like us and they'd be moving into our storage center really soon. They were really excited about them. They were coming along really well. That's what the other white coat said."

"Wait,…more…kids…like us?" Fang asked incredulously.

"How many, Iggy, did they say how many?" I had to know

"Three, I think."

And then he instantly just dropped out in his crate, fast asleep.

Three more children whose lives had been destroyed in the same way that ours had, three more children stripped of the chance to be children, three more children without a childhood.

Fang and I looked at each other. Three more.


	6. Solitary Confinement A Fang Chapter

I have only one message to convey in my AN except for this

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Here ya go

**Fang**

That whole day was spent unlike any other I can remember. No one came for us, no one came to take us to some painful test, no one even entered the room for the entire day Max and I took turns sneaking out of our cages to stretch our legs, and more importantly, wings. Even though we didn't know how to fly yet, we still needed to keep our feathers in good condition. We opened Iggy's cage door while he slept and pulled out his legs so he could stretch out. We turned his cage so that it faced away from the door and left it that way. He was pretty much passed out anyway.

The next day was spent much the same way, and by that night, Max and I felt comfortable enough to sleep outside of our cages. The third day (and consequently last) day of our solitary lives, we spent long periods of time outside of our cages, and Iggy was finally feeling close to normal. Severe pain, fear and depression were nothing new to us. But Iggy's was worse than ours ever had been. Iggy had just lost one of the few things any of us had left.

He sat alone, cooped up in the dark confines of his cage. He'd let us open the door, but refused to come out. Max and I sat off to the side, near our cages, ready to dive back in as soon as we heard a sound, whispering to each other, trying not to disturb Iggy.

"I just can't wait 'til the day that I'm big enough to take down all those white coats and Erasers by myself." Max said. Imagining the future sometimes made the present go by faster

"You wouldn't have to do it alone, Max, me and Ig will gladly help you."

"Yeah, but… Fang, Iggy can't…he can't see anymore, I don't know how he'd do in a fight. Every time after this that we try to break loose and run away, we run the risk of losing Iggy or leaving him behind because he can't see. What if that makes him a liability? I won't leave him here alone, I can't, so don't suggest that. I would never leave either of you behind, even if it meant that I'd have a perfect, painless, free life." Max whispered fiercely.

"I wasn't going to suggest that, he's like a brother…"

"I know, exactly. But if we don't have the hope that we might escape this place one day, what do we live for? Each other? And if one of us…dies in the hellhole, then the ones left behind will have nothing to live for. Besides, we might as well be dead, living here." Max was still whispering quietly so that even sitting next to her I had to strain to hear her.

From across the room, Iggy's voice came to us. He was sitting on top of his cage, suddenly smiling. "I don't think that I'll be much of a liability to you guys, I can hear you clear as day from over here, Max."

"Your blindness! I think it enhanced all of your other senses Iggy!"

"Yeah, that would explain the heightened sense of pain when I got back." Iggy grumbled, and then the smile was gone and he was back in his cage.


	7. Deal With It A Iggy Chapter

I thought that since max and fang got their own chapters, iggy deserved one too

here goes

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**Iggy**

It was the most terrible thing I had ever experienced, losing my sight. It isn't as if I had had much to look forward to seeing every day, but still. Max and Fang told me jokes and tried their best to cheer me up. Things that would have had me rolling in my cage with tears of laughter running down my face days earlier, only made me want to cry real tears now. I guess learning about my new sensory skills felt pretty cool, but I would have traded them all in for the ability to see again.

I know, I know, it happens to loads of people and I should be more grateful than that I'm still alive and that those stupid white coats didn't kill me, or worse, make me an Eraser (and believe me, I _am _grateful for that) and instead of moping I should try and work my way through this problem…blah blah blah. But, see, it isn't like I was just overly emotional or 'bad' at dealing and coping with my new 'defect'. It's just that out of the hundreds of thousands, or maybe even millions of people in this world who are blind, I don't think any of them have wings, live in a cage, have the last sighted memory of a dirty white coat in their heads twenty-four seven, or had their sight 'accidently' removed during a random and unplanned surgery in a botched-attempt-to-give-them-super-vision turned lab accident!

So, yeah, I spent the first three days of not being able to see locked up in a possibly dark (I wouldn't have known if it was bright as afternoon in there anyway) cage moping and wishing I was dead and wishing the white coats were dead and wishing I could be normal, but who could blame me? I mean, really, wouldn't you have done the same thing?

By the fourth day after that epic fail of a surgery, I still wasn't ready to move on. Still, I guess fate or destiny or whatever didn't care if I was ready or not. I was forced to move on. And maybe it was for the better, because after that day, it was weeks before I even remembered to be emo over my predicament. I guess I just learned pretty quickly that you gotta work with what you got and not think about what you don't.


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